Need help with decreasing night feeds- EBF 5 month old

[FourGirlsNM]

Hello, I know there must be info on here somewhere about how to best decrease night time nursing feeds. My LO (almost 5 mos old (4 mos adjusted for prematurity)), about 14 lbs and is still waking to eat every 2 or so hours at night to eat for the past month or so and I am now noticing that she is eating less during the day!!! So I wanted some help with how to decrease her nursing session times at night (now they only last like 6 minutes as it is) I am thinking if I can decrease them, she will then eat more during the day and eventually we can decrease the number of night wakenings!!

Now, when she wakes, if I do NOT nurse her, she will settle and go back to sleep but will then wake again every 5-10 minutes until I nurse her and then she will sleep for another couple hours. So it really seems like it is hunger.

Also she does NOT take a bottle, we are working on it but right now she refuses it so bottle feeding less and less ozs is not an option (this is what I did with DD1). Also night time is pretty much my domain as my partner has a back injury and has a long commute to work so I let her sleep. TIA!

[Erin M]

Does she nurse one side or two?  What des your daytime EASY look like right now?  Is it possible that there's some sort of discomfort or something else at play?  She's certainly nursing too much at night right now!  If she's nursing two sides, I'd try to only do one and see how it goes from there.  If she's only doing one side, I'd try to decrease the minutes that she's nursing and see how it goes.  (((hugs))) you must be exhausted!

[FourGirlsNM]

Hi! She nurses one side at night and sometimes. During the day usually both but she is a fast nursed. 4oz in 5 minutes when did a ore and post bf weight and probably has acid reflux and takes zantac. Might try different med but doesn't seem in pain at night just crying to nurse and goes right back to sleep for another 2 hrs.

EASY is like this since she is still mostly catnapping in morning.
5am typical last night fee
Wakes for day by 6-630a
A 1-1.5 HRS
S 730-815
E 815
A 1.5
S 945-1030
E 10:45
A 1.5
S 1230-230ish (with assist. To go back after first Wu)
E 230
A 1.5
Usually catnap 430 or 5
E 5ISH
A
E 645
S 7PM

its different every day,  basically shooting for 3 hrs between  feeds and after 1.5 hrs A goes down easy.

[ZacsMumme]

hugs,
how long has she been on the zantac and what is the dose? It could be she needs an increase. Snacking rather than taking full feeds can be a sign of discomfort from reflux as the milk eases the burn.

Does she take a paci?

[FourGirlsNM]

Won't take paci or a bottle.
1.5ml of Zantac twice a day, was at Pediatrician today for DD1 and she said we could try prevacid or something else if I wanted to see if it would help the overnights more.  Maybe we should just to know once and for all if these frequent wakenings are due to reflux?? It has been over 5 weeks of every 2 hour NW and over 2 weeks on the zantac!!!

[ZacsMumme]

Zantac doesn't always work for some LOs. If your dr and you are happy to trial a PPI then I would go for it, you will know in 2 weeks if it is the reflux and should see an improvement. Hugs

[blondie91582]

This sounds exactly like me 2 weeks ago. LO got to the point where he was waking every hour at night. He's now on 7.5mg of Prevacid once a day & 1.8mL of Zantac twice a day (he weighs 17 lbs). Since they recently upped his medication, he's napping better & now it's starting to spread to his night sleep too. I also put him on his left side at night (helps with the reflux) & put a rolled up towel behind him to keep him there. He actually slept for 8 hrs straight last night for the first time ever!

The other thing that really helped us was doing some sleep training so he can put himself to sleep now. I didn't want to do PU/PD since he has reflux, so I did a modified version of that mixed with shh-pat. I can tell you what I did, if you're interested I hope it starts getting better soon. I know how frustrated & exhausted you are.

[FourGirlsNM]

Blondie would love to hear what you did! She is now on Prilose 2x a day. Usually will now give me one 4 hour stretch (but not every night) and otherwise is up ever 2 or so hours. Wants to nurse each time, I end up with her in bed with me so I can get some sleep. We are on vacation now and I have been nursing her down way too much so will have some work ahead of me when we get back!!!

[blondie91582]

I totally understand! I had to teach LO to sleep in his crib & on his own because we were using way too many props. I don't know if you'd rather do it gradually or all at once, but we did one thing at a time (only because I hadn't found this site yet). We first had him sleep in his crib all the time for a few days. Then worked on sleeping without being swaddled (he was rolling over, but wouldn't sleep without it so we got a zipadeezip to transition him). After that, we were still holding him, rocking, singing, anything & everything to get him to fall asleep. He'd cry sometimes for an hour & a half, even so, before going to sleep. If your baby is still swaddled or doesn't roll around much, you can elevate the head of her crib. That worked great for us until he started rolling around & ending up bunched at the bottom haha.

Then, I found this site I tried shh-pat, but it didn't really work for him most of the time. If he was already really calm, it helped him fall asleep. So I ended up doing PU/PD, but only picking him up if he was REALLY worked up & making sure to do it slowly (so it wouldn't upset his reflux). The first night took an hour & half, but I stuck with it & he slept 7 hours straight! Naps got better after a couple days & nights were pretty good (never got that 7 hour stretch again until last night). You have to stick with it, no matter what happens though. It got really bad again a few days ago & I almost gave up, but we pushed through & now he's doing really well

The things that I found to be most important were consistency (if you change it up, she'll be confused & upset, so it won't work) & confidence (if you act like you know what you're doing, she'll trust you). I even put up some sticky notes on the door to his room to keep me motivated. Someone on here mentioned doing that & it really helped to see that on my way in. They say things like "he's not mad at you, just frustrated" "this is a tool. you're teaching him how to sleep better" & "we can do this together". It might be a little cheesy, but it seriously kept me going. She's probably having a hard time now being away from home while you're on vacation, but that might make it easier to start on this when you get back. She won't necessarily be thinking about bad habits there. Good luck!

[FourGirlsNM]

thank you, sounds similar to what we have been doing (prior to vacation), but I am wondering what I am doing wrong b/c it has not helped extend her night time sleep much at all! This is what I do:
Nighttime routine, including BF
Walk around room with her up on my shoulder with some patting and singing lullaby until sleepy
Put her down on her side in crib and ssh pat her  (she really loves patting)
If she gets really worked up, I pick her up for a couple minutes and calm her then put her back down and shh pat again until asleep.

Here is my question, I am pretty much patting her to sleep which I think has become a prop now! So I am wondering if I need to really start tapering off the patting before she is asleep, step back and see what happens, if she starts to cry (which is what usually happens when I have tried this), try to calm with sh pat, p/u if gets really upset and do it all over and over again? Is that what you did? Stop the pat before he fell to sleep so that the last minute or so before sleep was just nothingness in the crib? I think this could be what happens to her at night, she wakes after a couple hours and wants the patting again or nursing. Now if I pat her all the way to sleep the process only takes like 10 minutes on a good night, 30-45 on a bad. But have been doing this for like 7 weeks with little change in night time awakenings.

Also- she is really really squirmy at night, like arches her back and just constantly moves around, seems like she is in discomfort?? Last night I forgot her med and it was worse, so wondering if the med is not totally removing the pain of the reflux and this could also be still contributing??? OR she is just a restless, squirmy sleeper? Maybe I should post this question in the medical issues section to see if others have had this happen.

[blondie91582]

Do you say your phrase every time you pick her up? That's the signal to them to calm down. It took us a little while, but I gradually did less when putting him down. Once he's calm when he's in the crib, I put my hand on his chest & say our phrase "it's time to sleep" & then remove my hand. At first I would stand there until he fell asleep, but I would only touch him again if he got upset. Then do that again when he calmed down. Then after he was doing that pretty well, I started saying it & then stepping back, but staying in the room. Then, I finally would put him down, say the phrase & then say "I'll see you after your nap/in the morning" & walk out of the room. The first couple times he cried a little, but now he babbles or mantra cries until he falls asleep. Now he actually doesn't like it if I stay in there. He doesn't like a long routine either. Once he's in jammies & I pick him up, he snuggles for a few seconds & then starts pushing off of me. I think that they really do want to sleep on their own, so once they understand what's going on, they want to try to do it alone

I don't know if the squirming is due to pain or just her personality. My LO likes to roll around a lot. Now that he's not swaddled anymore, he actually prefers to sleep on his stomach most of the time.